The 1978 JFK Lufthansa Heist was the biggest robbery on U.S. soil at the time and lived on in infamy through the Martin Scorsese film "Goodfellas."
On the night of Dec. 11, 1978, an estimated half dozen gunmen broke into the Lufthansa cargo terminal at New York's Kennedy International Airport.
The thieves spent 64 minutes loading packets of cash and jewels into a getaway van before making their escape.
The crime netted more than $5 million in cash and $1 million in jewels – the equivalent of more than $20 million today.
Until today, the only person who ever had to answer for a role in the notorious robbery was Louis Werner, an airport worker who provided critical inside information to the robbers.
A years-long investigation ran out of steam and it was believed the thieves and their associates had likely disappeared or died. The cash was never found.
More than 35 years later, federal agents caught up with a geriatric reputed mobster and announced in a sweeping indictment that he would be charged for his alleged role in the heist.
As part of a series of predawn raids around the New York metro area, FBI agents arrested Vincent Asaro, 78, of Howard Beach, N.Y., according to sources.
Asaro, said to be a ranking member of the Bonanno organized crime family, is expected to be arraigned in federal court later today on a series of racketeering charges to include the JFK caper.
While the feds haven't yet revealed what they believe Asaro's role was, he was reputed to be a key Mafia overseer responsible for illicit activities at JFK.
Asaro's arrest follows the discovery last June of human remains in a basement once owned by Jimmy "the Gent" Burke, who was portrayed by Robert deNiro on the movie "Goodfellas."
Thieves stole more than $50 million worth of diamonds off an airplane on the tarmac in Brussels, Belgium.
The heist unfolded in fewer than five minutes without a single shot fired.
The gang cut through an airport fence and drove up to the Helvetic Airways jet in cars with flashing lights.
Dressed in police uniforms and carrying submachine guns, they unloaded 120 packages of rough and cut stones while holding the pilot and co-pilot at gunpoint, according to the Belgium prosecutor's office.
Months later, authorities arrested 31 people in a three-country sweep tied to the robbery.
Two sharply dressed men entered Graff Diamonds' flagship store in the middle of the day Aug. 6, 2009, and ripped off about $65 million in jewelry.
The thieves left the store with 43 pieces of bling -- including earrings, watches, rings and a necklace made of 272 diamonds -- and a hostage in tow.
Police said the men arrived at the store in a London taxi and made an incredible getaway, changing cars three times in a distance measuring less than half a mile. They crashed once, handed a bag of jewels to an accomplice on a motorcycle and gave police the slip, despite being right in the center of London.
But authorities caught up to the thieves less than two weeks later. Aman Kassaye, who is said to have been the ringleader, was sentenced to 23 years in prison. Three accomplices were sentenced to 16 years in prison on conspiracy to rob charges.
A 16-carat yellow diamond stolen in the heist showed up last year in a Hong Kong pawn shop, The Guardian reported.
Thieves were ankle-deep in diamonds when they broke into the Diamond Center in Antwerp, the world capital of diamond-cutting, in February 2003.
In what was dubbed the "heist of the century," the gang walked into the city's highly guarded Diamond Center one night after it had closed and pilfered 123 of its 160 safety deposit boxes -- no guns, no bloodshed, no screeching tires.
Considered an impenetrable bank, the center's vaults were protected by 10 layers of security, "including infrared heat detectors, Doppler radar, a magnetic field and a lock with 100 million possible combinations," according to Wired magazine.
Italian Leonardo Notarbartolo was arrested several weeks after the heist. He later was convicted based on DNA evidence found on a sandwich left behind at the scene.
At midnight March 18, 1990, two men wearing police uniforms knocked on the door of the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston, informing the guard on duty that they had received a complaint about a disturbance on the premises.
Once inside, the thieves proceeded to perpetrate the greatest theft of artwork in history.
Making off with between $300 million and $500 million worth of masterpieces, the two thieves stole a Vermeer, three Rembrandts, five paintings by Degas and four other paintings.
The heist wasn't discovered until the morning when the guard's replacement arrived.
The thieves have never been captured and the statute of limitations on prosecuting the perpetrators has passed.
Isabella Stewart Gardner, the museum's namesake, died in the early 1900s, stipulating in her will that nothing in the museum be changed after her death.
The blond ladies who walked into jeweler Harry Winston's Paris store in December 2008 proved appearances can be deceiving.
The pistol-packing ladies turned out to be men who were members of an international crime syndicate nicknamed the Pink Panthers.
They stole sacks of emeralds, rubies and diamonds as large as birds' eggs to the tune of $105 million.
A number of the thieves -- all of whom were Serbian nationals -- were caught and convicted.
In 2011, authorities found a cache of diamonds stashed in a Paris drain pipe, but not everything has been recovered.
In 2003, a Graff store in Japan was robbed in three minutes by armed thieves also believed to be members of the Pink Panthers and who made off with $37 million.
In October 2007, the same Harry Winston store in Paris was knocked over by a different group of robbers who made off with $20 million.
One of the largest cash robberies in U.S. history took place in 1997 at Dunbar Armored, an armored car company located in Los Angeles.
Company employee Alan Pace and a band of thieves entered the armored car depot using Pace's keys and timed the robbery to avoid being caught by security cameras.
Once inside, they assaulted the guards and raided the vault he knew was opened on Friday nights, making off with $18.9 million.
Pace and several other members of the gang were arrested, after one of them, Eugene Hill, paid someone with a stack of bills still wrapped with Dunbar-branded cash straps.
Pace was sentenced to 24 years in jail.
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